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FOR HORSE PEOPLE • ABOUT HORSE PEOPLE SIDELINES FEBRUARY 2011 103

Calecto V and Tina Konyot packed the wow factor last April when they won both the Grand Prix and Freestyle during the Kentucky Cup WEG Test Events at the Kentucky Horse Park. The Dutch Warmblood stallion had been competing at the Grand Prix level for less than two years, and yet they dominated the Collecting Gaits Farm/USEF Festival of Champions, winning all four classes of the Selection Trial, thereby securing their berth on the U.S. Dressage team for the 2010 Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games.

“My horse felt great for the Grand Prix at WEG,” recalls Tina. “There were just mistakes – a miscommunication at the end when he stopped and then went into piaffe and a break in the frst extension, but he felt like a million dollars and it was just unfortunate. I was personally unhappy with my Grand Prix Special: it just wasn’t my day. I was happy and honored to be there, but we intend to get much better.”

Honing and refning is part of Tina’s legacy from her family’s history as performers. Apples don’t fall far from the tree, after all, and Tina is the product of fve generations of old fashioned horsemen who trained the horses with whom they entertained audiences around the world.

A Circus Background

“I’m a little different than most competitors,” admits Tina. “I don’t have nerves – I think because of my upbringing and being on my own and training on my own. I’m always in a zone when I’m riding and I feel comfortable when I go into a competition ring. If anything, I’m a bit better when there are more people watching, more lights, more action. I was so looking forward to riding the Freestyle [at WEG} with a full house – that would have been my shining moment. For me it’s a home place – from growing up with a performing circus background.”

Tina’s tests, especially the creative Freestyle set to music, tend to be electric: she feels totally at home on a horse in any situation, be it dressage court, open feld or racetrack when she galloped Thoroughbreds. She holds nothing back in the quest to give her horse the best ride she possibly can. Those privileged to be present for the Freestyle during the Kentucky Cup will testify that Tina and Calecto V (or “Smoochie”) stole the evening with their upbeat choreography to “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” by KT Tunstall with the words “big black stallion says look at me” dubbed in, “Let’s Get Loud” (Jennifer Lopez) and “Crazy In Love” (Beyoncé.)

Looking Forward to London..?

“I have a good feeling for us the next two years in the run up to London,” says Tina. “I think it will be a time for this animal to really shine. My plan is to keep us both sound and healthy. I’ve grown up with some bad accidents and I’m keeping that in mind as I keep developing this horse. He knows his job and he’s going to learn new things about himself and look for perfection.”

Tina snowbirded to Florida by the frst of November. Her signifcant other, Roger Attfeld, a Hall of Fame Thoroughbred

racehorse trainer based at Woodbine (CAN), had horses running in the Breeder’s Cup in Kentucky and a horse running in Japan. “During the winter I won’t have a very diffcult show schedule with Calecto,” admits Tina. “My intention is to do a few of the bigger shows with preparation of going again to compete in Europe for fve or six weeks. With a stallion, I’m not allowed to stay any longer than that. He’s such a cool character that we can allow just a week for a big competition and he’s just fne with it.”

Last fall, Tina went straight from WEG to Canada with Calecto V, where he enjoyed a total change of scenery and routine. “In Canada, we don’t have an arena, so I ride him in a big feld where we do ‘tree work’ in and out of the trees. I ride him up and down the hills, walking, jogging,” Tina describes. “He thought he won a gold medal, he was so proud of himself. I told him, ‘Buddy, we didn’t do so well,’ but he was still squealing. At the end of three weeks, he was galloping up and down the hills.” They didn’t go back into the arena until the beginning of December, after a month in Florida.

“I don’t want to stay in the arena all the time. I don’t want him to be sour – I want him to be happy,” emphasizes Tina. “Sometimes people think the harder they work, the more they work, the better it becomes. But my father always told me: ‘sometimes less is more.’ That’s the greatest advice I can pass on – that sometimes less is more.”